Inside Homes - April 2017

HOME LIFE Real Estate News and Open House I Inside Homes and My Washington

% 2EXYVEP ,EFMXEX Environmentalists Lisa Renstrom and Bob Perkowitz take us inside their LEED Silver certified Kalorama residence.

BY ERICA MOODY PHOTOGRAPHS BY TONY BROWN

HOME LIFE | INSIDE HOMES

backyard chicken coop might be the last thing you’d expect to see in upscale Kalorama, but to Lisa Renstrom, it feels like home. “We had 200 chickens growing up in Nebraska and I have wanted them ever since,” the climate solutions expert says. She soon convinced her husband, ecoAmerica president Bob Perkowitz, and her two neighbors, who were charmed by the idea of a little rusticity in the middle of the city.

For Renstrom, who settled in Kalorama five years ago, that childhood Nebraska farm was where she first n appreciation for nature, and she wanted her developed an home to ref lect that.

“The seasons and rhythms of the natural world keep me sane and happy,” she says. After purchasing their property (they love Kalorama because they can get anywhere downtown in 15 minutes on their CityBikes), the earthfriendly couple decided to take the leap and make their entire 3,700-square-foot house fit the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.

It took two years to renovate. They engaged Jeff Hains of Hains Architects and challenged him to build his first LEED home, taking the house down to its cement blocks to create a super tight building envelope. They augmented a traditional gas heater with Solar Thermal and used twopound closed-cell spray foam to reduce air leakage while still making sure there was lots of natural light.

“While the foundation, walls, roof, heating and cooling system impact your energy use, I love light,” Renstrom says. “Therefore, good windows are important.”

Floor-to-ceiling windows in the second-f loor dining room look onto the backyard, which blooms in spring with a Japanese maple, a River birch and a green roof planted over the garage where Perkowitz charges his Tesla below.

The dining room doubles as Renstrom’s office, so she can

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OPENING PAGE: Lisa Renstrom and Bob Perkowitz take a ladder up to the green roof over their garage.

PREVIOUS PAGE: (clockwise from top left) Renstrom and Perkowitz go everywhere on their foldable CityBikes in the library/office near the front entrance of the house; they spend much of their time in the living room, which has antiques collected from their extensive travels including African art and an 18th century Virgin of Guadalupe artwork from Mexico; the backyard houses a chicken coop marked with a stone from the garden of Renstrom’s mother Betty, and a staircase leading to the second floor; his-and-her sinks in the master bathroom were fountains salvaged from the Philadelphia Convention Hall and Civic Center ; an attachment on the lower level of the house houses a cistern and a bed for reading or sleeping when they want to feel close to nature.

THIS PAGE: (clockwise from top left) The formal dining room doubles as Renstrom’s office and features a brass table she designed and had built based on a photo from a magazine; a guest bedroom has a fun, eclectic mix of art on the walls including paintings from Mexican artists, friends and a “Picasso” which is actually a canvas bag Renstrom’s mother got from Marshall’s and had framed; their love of nature shines through in the cedar tree trunk sink in the entry level half-bathroom; the colorful guest bedroom includes a magenta couch.

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gaze onto the greenery as she works. On the entry level, a bed in the attachment that houses their 780-gallon roofcatchment cistern is like the “bed on the porch” that was common before air conditioning. Renstrom and Perkowitz sleep out there on occasion.

In the beloved backyard is a compost, where “every year I get to deposit last year’s sunshine onto my garden,” Renstrom says. In the front yard is a garden where their granddaughter Ellie is learning to like worms and delights in picking tomatoes, lettuce and squash for dinner when she visits.

Anyone viewing their home from the street sees a building in classic Washington style, which is what Renstrom intended.

“We took the outside back to classical Washington but took the inside forward to the way homes will be built, so that they really do harvest sunshine and harvest water.”

It was important to both of them that the house be technologically as well as environmentally smart. iPads placed throughout are used to control lights, music and heat.

“The best part is the ‘all off ’ function,” Renstrom says with a laugh.

In keeping with LEED guidelines, which stipulate a preference for materials within a radius of 50 miles, interior elements were sourced from local or regional shops. For f loors, they used recycled wood from Second Chance in Baltimore, one of their go-to shops (they also love Miss Pixie’s in Logan Circle). Rockville Steel Manufacturing provided iron for the terrace, Luke Works poured the laundry room’s concrete basin and John Coleman from First Forest Furniture & Millwork in Luray, Va. did the wine cellar, cabinetry and closets.

Furnishings are an eclectic mix of antiques and contemporary pieces from the Washington area and abroad. A Mexican inf luence is apparent, ref lecting the ten years Renstrom spent in Acapulco in the hotel industry before relocating to North Carolina and then Washington.

Renstrom’s favorite piece, a Virgin of Guadalupe painting, dates to the 18th century.

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The long dining room/office table from which she views the backyard is one of the most striking elements — a brass piece based on a design Renstrom saw in a magazine.

Against the cabinets is ref lected a mural created by North Carolina artist and friend Rad Baily, showing bubbles of light from one side of the room to the other. “[They represent] the circles of light that exist in all of us, the God that lives within us,” Renstrom says. “When man acts with particular malice and deception, I like to have these around me to remember that within each of us, there is good.”

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